An informal meeting was held on 21 April 2022 in the canteen of the customs at Siret border point under the auspices of the Civic Society Coordination.
First, there was a follow up on agenda points from the previous meeting and then new points were covered:
1. Clarification of the difference between Asylum and Temporary Protection
- Clarification of terms:
- At the border people when coming across are still in a state of high tension, and not able to fully process complex legal information. The recommendation is to keep the information extremely simple at this point, with further juridical information being offered by those specialised in that area at the shelters, where the refugees are more settled down and able to understand better.
- The essential information all civil society actors need to know
- The measure of granting temporary protection is a way for the Romanian state to respond quickly and efficiently to the massive influx of displaced persons into Romania, by simplifying working procedures and ensuring immediate access to assistance measures (medical, social, labor market access, access education)
- Essential points to communicate to refugees:
- You need to apply for temporary protection. This gives you access to medical and social services while in Romania. You are free to travel, nobody will take your passport or limit your rights in any way.
- How do they apply?
- They apply for temporary protection by registering with the police in the place where you are staying as soon as possible.
- Then they have 90 days to go to the nearest IGI ( Immigration department) where you must register at the police where you are staying.
- If they choose not to remain in Romania, they need to apply for the same type of temporary protection starting with registration with the police at whatever EU destination point they go to.
- Why is it important?
- Up until now, the hospitals were able to absorb treatments for Ukrainian refugees even without the CNP from their own budgets. Now those budgets are exhausted. The patients must have a CNP so that the hospitals can be reimbursed for their expenses.
2. Need for a permanent pool of translators
- Action point to follow up: JDC is creating vests that are clearly marked for translators, without any other logo
- ISU needs a constant source of translators to be present at the border
- All organisations when making budgets should include budget lines for translators
- Confidentiality – all translators must be thoroughly trained in confidentiality
3. Volunteers
- All volunteers must have volunteer contracts, and the organisation that contracts them is accountable for ensuring proper training in confidentiality and all other points of humanitarian standards
- ISU will create a google sheet table for each organisation which they will keep permanently updated with information about current volunteers registered with them
4. How to know updated information on how many people are passing the border point in Siret?
Here is a map that shows each border point and how long waiting times are:
And here is a where they publish the total data about numbers crossing the border daily for the whole country:
5. First Aid Container recommendation and action points
- It is important to ensure constant access to medical services – so Stratus from MDM will take on the leadership to coordinate between the SMURD and other medical services present at the border to create a system of rotation so that there is a continuous presence from 6am to 2 am
- Only qualified medical doctors and nurses can give medication to refugees. Even if other organisations have medications in their supplies, they must direct people to the medical professionals for administering the medicine, even if it is only something seemingly simple like aspirin or nurofren. Do not give directly. There are serious legal and ethical consequences.
6. Organisation of Coordination Meetings:
- AMURTEL will take on responsibility to ensure tables, chairs, and other equipment needed for meetings in the canteen building, but these items must not leave the building to be used elsewhere.
- Meetings will be held regularly on every Thursday
- From next Thursday, meetings will be available in hybrid format, with zoom access for those that cannot attend physically
7. Legal advice
- Juridical experts are available and have handouts available in several languages at the Blue Dot point as well as with IGI
8. Flow of Refugees and information
- It is easy to manage when numbers of refugees are low, but we must be prepared for surges and for each organisation to understand how its part of the puzzle fits into the rest.
- Action Point:
- A common “Information Point” tent will be established at the very beginning of the flow, where all of the different types of services are represented (not nec. This information point will not have the specific branding of any particular organisation associated with it. ISU is the one ultimately responsible and providing the umbrella for all of us to work together.
- Photography:
- In this point, there should be no photographs, no media inside, as this is also where refugees can be informed about their privacy rights.
- Photos of refugees: refugees are in a state of vulnerability , and even if we seem to obtain their consent, they are not fully aware of the consequences. No photos taken of refugees in a way that they are identifiable (front facing photos in particular) To document the work of the organisation, any photos taken should be from angles from the back or such that the face is not easily recognizable. Volunteers can be taken from the front of course, if you have their consent. In the protected zone where the gendarmes are present, no photography or videos are allowed.
- ISU request:
- ISU has requested all organisations to submit information by email regarding longer term plans, so that they can consolidate information about who will continue to be present longer term at the border and how to best orient our services to serve the needs of the refugees
- ISU also has a system of coding the intensity of the flow: blue, yellow, red with red being the highest flow
- In a red situation, such as at the beginning, all triage and services will happen at the emergency shelters, at the border people will simply go by buses to those points.
A follow-up meeting was held on 22/4/22 to discuss how to organize the new Info Point.
The following services will be available:
- Medic – staffed by medical professionals, though no medicine or treatment will be done inside the Info Point, only referrals to SMURD or NGOs present outside the Info Tent if needed.
- Humanitarian Support – no meals or goods will be in the tent, only referrals to NGOs that have meals, clothes etc.
- Psycho-Social Support – information about options, no case management in the Info Point.
- Translators – covering Romanian, Ukrainian, English and Russian
- Legal advice
- ISU – Transport and Accommodation advice
- Assist with referrals from all the desks: Firefighters will support the family with luggage etc. as they walk to the services of any of the NGOs, similarly to what they are doing now.
- Coordination of the Info Point.
- The Info Point strategy rest on the scheduled participation of all the NGOs. A large scheduling whiteboard will enable all NGOs to contribute to the desks in shifts (self-assignment).
- Ideally, the Info Point will be open 24/7.
- The Info Point will offer water, warm drinks and light snacks, another area NGOs can participate in.
- The Info Point will have an area for mothers and children of all ages to sit down and take a breather.